Former Chicago Bull star Norm Van Lier dead at 61

Formed core of team with Jerry Sloan, Chet Walker and Bob Love

The Comcast SportsNet staff suspected something was wrong when Norm Van Lier didn't show up Wednesday night to work the Bulls' halftime and postgame shows.

"Stormin' Norman" never missed a day of work.

"Normally he was there at least an hour and a half before I got there, always sitting in the same place," said Kendall Gill, one of his co-hosts. "When I came in and he wasn't there, I thought he was in makeup or had gone to the restroom. I asked around, 'Where's Norm?' Man, I knew something was seriously wrong."

Comcast colleagues left numerous messages, and when they still hadn't heard from Van Lier by Thursday morning, assignment desk manager Tim Folke went to his Near West Side apartment.

"I knocked on the door and I could hear the TV, but there was no answer," Folke said. "So I called 311, and the police and fire department came and eventually broke the door down and found him."

Van Lier, the fiercely competitive Bulls guard best known for teaming with Jerry Sloan in one of the NBA's toughest backcourts, was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene. He was 61. The cause of death was not released, pending a report by the Cook County medical examiner.

Comcast colleague Mark Schanowski said Van Lier had "different health issues the last few years that sapped him of his energy," but a change in medication seemed to have perked him up.

"He was turning the corner health-wise, getting his energy back -- he said it was the best he'd felt in a long time," Schanowski said.

News of his death was a shock to friends, colleagues and former teammates, who recalled Van Lier bringing the same work ethic and passion he had as a player to broadcasting.

"Everyone in the building does an impersonation of Norm saying, 'Forty-eight minutes of intensity,'" Schanowski said. "He believed that every moment you were wearing that Chicago Bulls uniform, you had to leave it all on the court. He couldn't accept some of today's privileged athletes who felt they could coast."

Schanowski remembered Van Lier challenging James Posey to a fight after the then-Miami Heat forward delivered a cheap shot to Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich during the 2006 playoffs.

"Norm was offended. He said, 'Posey, I'll meet you outside the locker room and kick your ass,'" Schanowski said. "Norm always felt he represented the Bulls, and if he saw something that was not right, he was going to call the guy out."

Longtime teammate Bob Love recalled a more infamous incident when Van Lier retaliated for a hard foul against one of the Bulls by challenging Portland's Sidney Wicks.

"He was a fighter who wasn't afraid of anybody," Love said. "Sidney was 6-9, 240. Norm was 6-1, 165. Norm picked up a chair and ran Wicks all around the court. He said, 'Butter, if I had hit him, I would've cut him down to my size.'"

NBA Senior Vice President Brian McIntyre was at that game and laughingly recalled Bulls coach Dick Motta saying, "I knew when Norm went for the chair, he wasn't going to sit on it."

Van Lier grew up in the Pittsburgh area and led his Midland High School team to the 1965 Pennsylvania state championship. He was recruited as a football player but ignored by the big-time basketball schools, so he attended St. Francis University in Loretto, Pa., where Bulls scout Jerry Krause spotted him.

The Bulls took Van Lier in the third round of the 1969 draft, the 34th pick overall, but traded him to Cincinnati for center Walt Wesley. In 1970-71, his second season, he led the NBA in assists with 10.1 per game.

"A year later, Wesley goes to Cleveland in the expansion draft and Van Lier becomes a significant player in Cincinnati, and I have to pick up the paper every day and see that," recalled Pat Williams, the Bulls' general manager at the time.

The Royals had drafted Nate Archibald in 1970, giving them two undersized guards. Needing a center, they sent Van Lier back to the Bulls for Jim Fox.

"And suddenly, we had the most ferocious guard line in the history of the NBA," Williams said. "Norm and Jerry Sloan were not the most talented guard line, but they led the league in charges, floor burns and diving into the stands for loose balls. Old-time basketball fans in Chicago will never forget the intensity and passion and fervor they brought every night."

Sloan always spoke fondly of his backcourt mate.

"It was a pleasure playing with Norm; he was a terrific competitor," he said in a November 2008 interview. "We practiced hard every day, and he was not afraid to tell a guy to practice hard -- 'That's the way we do it here.'"

Love said Van Lier "never took a night off. He came to play every game . . . [and] as a one-on-one defender, he was the best. He would eat you up.

"We fed off of Norm. I would call him the 'Little Rat' because that basketball was like a piece of cheese for Norm."

After a final season with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1979, Van Lier retired as a three-time All-Star. He was named to the first or second all-defensive team eight times and had totals of 8,770 points and 5,217 assists.